Shortly after Yadier Molina and the Cardinals agreed to a five-year, $75 million deal that will keep him from hitting the open market next offseason fellow impending free agent catcher Miguel Montero and the Diamondbacks announced that they’ve stopped negotiating a long-term extension.

While standing alongside Montero at a podium general manager Kevin Towers told reporters that they were “unable to find common ground” and will revisit things after the season.

Of course, at that point Montero won’t have any incentive to sign long term because he’ll be eligible for free agency, so if the two sides are indeed ruling out an extension before then his odds of staying in Arizona beyond 2012 seemingly just took a major hit.

Montero is coming off a career-year, hitting .282 with 18 homers and an .820 OPS while making his first All-Star team at age 27. He also led the NL by throwing out 40 percent of steal attempts and combined during the past three seasons Montero has an .812 OPS compared to .745 for Molina.